RICHMOND TOWN AND PARK, WITH PETERSHAM,
HAM HOUSE, AND KINGSTON
In addition to the many interesting historic memories connected with
its palace, Richmond has associations with a number of important
religious houses, of which, unfortunately, no actual trace now remains,
though their names are preserved in those of certain modern roads.
Henry V., soon after his accession, founded in the Old Deer Park, near
the site of the present Observatory of Kew, a Carthusian monastery,
which he called the House of Jesus of Bethlehem, one of several endowed
by him in expiation for his father's usurpation of the throne, which
may possibly have been in Shakespeare's mind when in his Henry V. he
made that monarch say, 'And I have built two chantries where the sad
and solemn priests still pray for Richard's soul.'
The monastery of Jesus of Bethlehem seems to have been a very imposing
group of buildings, covering several acres of ground, round about which
soon gathered a considerable hamlet that was known as West Sheen. In
the chapel connected with it {245} continual prayers were offered up
day and night for the soul of King Richard, and within its precincts
was a hermitage called the Anchorites' cell, where dwelt the chaplain,
whose stipend was fixed at twenty marks a year. The new community
quickly gained a great reputation for sanctity, and its priors were all
men chosen on account of their exceptional holiness, amongst whom the
last, Henry Man, who died in 1536, was specially noted for his earnest
faith, or what would at the present day be considered his credulity,
for he firmly believed in the divine mission of the Holy Maid of Kent,
who had during his term of office a great following of converts, and
paid by her terrible death at Tyburn for her boldness in predicting the
punishment of the king for his divorce of Katharine of Aragon.
[Sidenote: Sheen Monastery]
To Sheen Monastery came Edward IV. and his wife Elizabeth in 1472, to
take part in what was called the 'Great Pardon,' a special dispensation
granted to all who had contributed to the expense of restoring the
buildings, and to it some thirty years later fled Perkin Warbeck in the
vain hope of obtaining sanctuary, for he was dragged from his refuge by
the king's emissaries, by whom he was taken to London to be set in the
stocks, first at Westminster and at Cheapside, before he was sent to
the Tower, where his fellow-conspirator, the young Earl of Warwick, was
already imprisoned.
It was at Sheen that the education of the future Cardinal Pole was
begun, he having been sent there at the early age of seven. He
remained under the care of the monks for five years, and returned to
{246} them in 1525 for two years of prayerful seclusion before the
beginning of his long struggle with Thomas Cromwell over the question
of the king's divorce. The memory of the saintly Dean Colet is also
inseparably connected with the House of Jesus of Bethlehem, for some
little time after his foundation of St. Paul's School, he built for
himself a house on land acquired from the brethren, to which he
withdrew when he felt his end approaching, passing peacefully away in
it in 1519.
According to an old but not well-authenticated tradition, the dead body
of James IV. of Scotland was brought to Sheen for interment after the
fatal battle of Flodden Field, remaining in the monastery, however,
unhouselled and unassoiled, though protected from decay by being wrapt
in lead amongst a quantity of lumber in an upper chamber until 1552--a
date, by the way, long after the dissolution of the religious
houses--when it was found by some workpeople, who cut off the head to
give it to a glazier in Queen Elizabeth's employ, and buried the rest
of the remains. In 1539 the monks of Sheen wisely evaded the penalties
of resistance to the high-handed proceedings of Henry VIII. by
voluntarily surrendering their property to him, and although later
Queen Mary reinstated them in their old home, they were again banished
by her successor. Meanwhile the monastery had been occupied, first by
Edward, Earl of Hertford, brother of Jane Seymour, to whom the estate
had been granted by her husband, and later by the father of Lady Jane
Grey, Henry, Duke of Suffolk, after whose {247} death on the scaffold
in 1554 it reverted to the Crown, by whom it was leased to successive
tenants, passing in 1675 to Lord Brouncker and the more celebrated
diplomatist and historian, Sir William Temple, the former taking
possession of the Priory, the latter of a smaller house near by. It
was to Sir William Temple that were addressed the famous love-letters
of Dorothy Osborne, who when she became his wife lived with him in what
he called his 'little corner at Sheen,' sharing his interest in the
cultivation of his gardens, which became celebrated far and near for
the vegetables and fruit grown in them.
It was at Sheen that Jonathan Swift, who was for some years secretary
to Sir William Temple, first met his beloved 'Stella,' Hester Johnston,
who was born on the estate, and is said to have been the daughter of
its owner. Whether this be true or not, her education was entrusted by
Sir William to Swift, and it was to her that the latter addressed the
_Journal_, which is considered one of his most remarkable works. Soon
after his accession to the English throne, William III., who had seen a
good deal of Sir William Temple when the owner of the 'little corner at
Sheen' was ambassador at the Hague, offered him the post of Secretary
of State, and though the appointment was declined, the king used often
to ride over from Hampton Court to stroll about in the Sheen gardens,
when he and his host would discuss together, now affairs of vital
importance to the kingdom, now the best soil in which to grow different
varieties of fruit. Swift {248} was generally in attendance at these
meetings, and is said to have been taught by the royal guest how to
cook vegetables in the Dutch style. Possibly little Hester, still a
mere child, may have shared the royal instructions, that were continued
at Moor Park, to which her reputed father withdrew in 1689, giving over
the Sheen home to his only surviving son, John Temple. After the death
of the new tenant, who had been made Secretary for War, but committed
suicide four days afterwards in despair of being able to cope with the
onerous duties of his office, Sir William took a great dislike to his
once beloved property, and never again visited it. Meanwhile Lord
Brouncker had passed away, and after changing hands many times, the
monastery buildings, as well as the house that had been owned by Sir
William Temple, were pulled down in the early eighteenth century, with
the exception of one gateway belonging to the former, which was still
standing in 1769, when it too was removed, because it interfered with
the so-called improvements being made by George III. on his Kew estate.
The hamlet, that owed its existence to the monastery, was also swept
away, but its name is preserved in those of the suburb of East Sheen,
the road leading to it and one of the gates of Richmond Park, near to
which, amongst the many modern villas that have recently sprung up,
still remain some few stately old mansions, notably that known as
Temple Grove, that was once the home of Sir John, brother of Sir
William Temple.
The House of Jesus of Bethlehem was not the {249} only monastery
founded at Sheen by Henry V., for he also endowed a home for some
French monks of the Celestine order, but it was hardly completed before
he sent the inmates back to their own land and confiscated the
property, because he discovered on a surprise visit he paid them that
his name was not mentioned in their prayers. Later, Edward II. built a
convent at Sheen for Carmelite, and Henry VII. one for Observant
friars, but the career of both was short, for the former was soon
removed to Oxford and the latter was suppressed in 1534, though a
building near the palace was long known as the Friary, whilst the
memory of what must have been a very important community is still
preserved in the names of Friars' Lane, leading down to the river, and
Friar Stile Road in Upper Richmond.
[Sidenote: Richmond Lodge]
The house in which Dean Colet passed away, that was confiscated with
the rest of the monastery estate by Henry VIII., became known as the
Lodge, and it was to it that Cardinal Wolsey was ordered to withdraw,
as related above, on his last sad visit to Richmond. It was later
successively leased to various tenants, and granted in the early
eighteenth century to James, Duke of Ormond, who rebuilt or greatly
added to it, residing in it till his impeachment in 1715, when it
passed to his brother, the Earl of Arran, who sold it to the Prince of
Wales, later George II., who was living in it with his wife, the
Princess Caroline, when in 1727 the news of the death of his father was
brought to him by Sir Robert Walpole. The new king gave the Lodge to
the queen, who spent a great deal of money on it, {250} laying out the
grounds in a lavish fashion, and causing many extraordinary buildings
to be erected in them, including a fantastic structure known as
Merlin's Cave, a hermitage, a grotto, and a dairy. It was in this
beloved retreat that Sir Walter Scott in his _Heart of Midlothian_ laid
the scene of the interview between Jeanie Deans and Queen Caroline that
he prefaces with an eloquent description of Richmond Hill as it then
was, and the inimitable view from it. After the death of Queen
Caroline the Lodge was deserted for some little time, and in 1760 her
grandson, George III., pulled it down, destroyed the beautiful terrace
overlooking the river, and had the grounds ploughed up to add them to
the grazing-grounds of his sheep and cattle, leaving not a trace of a
home that was once as favourite a royal residence as the palaces of
Richmond and Kew, though the Old Deer Park in which it stood, where
archery, hockey, and other open-air competitions are now held, still
seems to be haunted by the spirits of those who lived in it.
[Sidenote: Richmond Town]
Of the many other fine old mansions that were long the pride of
Richmond, few, alas, now remain. Gone, for instance, is Fitzwilliam
House that fronted the green, in which George II. was the guest of Sir
Matthew Decker on the day when he was proclaimed king, and where its
noble former owner formed the priceless collection of rare books,
illuminated missals, etc., bequeathed by him to Cambridge and preserved
in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Vanished, too, is the famous 'High walk' or
'terras on arches' that stretched from where the Vicarage now {251}
stands to one of the entrances to the grounds of the Lodge, and was a
favourite promenade of the frequenters of the Richmond spa, which
enjoyed a brief popularity in the early eighteenth century, as is also
the humble group of houses known as Poverty Court, that were at one
time occupied by some of the poorer members of the nobility. The great
block of buildings erected in 1798 on part of the site of the old
palace by the Earl of Cholmondeley, that later became associated with
the notorious Earl of Queensberry, familiarly called 'Old O.,' in which
the Prince of Wales, later George IV., and Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Duke
of Clarence, later William IV., and Horace Walpole were amongst the
many distinguished guests, was pulled down in 1830 and replaced by the
modern villa that bears its name, though it is but a poor
representative of its predecessor. Fortunately, however, between the
fine bridge that replaced the ancient ferry in 1774 and Petersham,
still stand facing the river and preserving much of the character of
days gone by, several noteworthy survivals of the royal borough's palmy
days, including the picturesque Bridge-House built by Sir Robert Taylor
in the middle of the eighteenth century; the so-called Trumpeter's
House, also known as the 'Old Palace,' a characteristic Queen Anne
building with a pretentious porch, that owes its singular name to two
figures of trumpeters that used to stand on either side of the
entrance, Ivy Hall, the residence of William IV. when Duke of Clarence;
Gothic House, long the home of the cultivated Madame de Staël-Holstein,
daughter {252} of the astute French minister Necker; and Buccleuch
House, where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with many other members
of the royal family, were the guests of the then owner in June 1844 at
an open-air fête, when the river presented a scene almost as brilliant
as in the days of Henry VIII. or Elizabeth.
Fortunately, the general aspect of Richmond Green, that when the palace
was occupied by royalty was the scene of many a brilliant pageant, and
later of many a hotly contested game of cricket, in which the chief
experts of the day took part, is but little changed from what it was
two centuries ago. Its wooden palings have been replaced by iron ones
bearing the monogram of William IV., and the old sundial that long
occupied its centre has been removed, but its limits have not been
curtailed. It has a delightful old-world look about it, and there is
nothing incongruous with it in the new buildings of the Free Library,
or in the modern theatre associated with the name of Edmund Kean, who
was at one time its lessee, that replaces, though on another site, the
eighteenth-century building in which David Garrick and Mrs. Siddons are
said to have acted, and that was the successor of a yet earlier one
founded by the poet-laureate Colley Cibber. The narrow alleys leading
from the town to the time-honoured Green are also thoroughly in keeping
with it, and here and there a venerable red-brick mansion amongst the
more modern buildings surrounding it redeems the ancient borough from
the commonplace. The parish school and dust-bin, {253} with the open
refuse-heap that long occupied the site of the present crescent; the
old watch-house that looked down upon them, with the adjacent pound and
stocks, have all been improved away; but the houses of Heron,
originally Herring Court, named probably after a former owner, in one
of which Lord Lytton was often the guest of his brother, those in
Ormond Road where dwelt the poetess Mrs. Hofland, Lichfield House, now
the residence of the novelist Mrs. Maxwell (Miss Braddon), and Egerton
House opposite to it, still strike the note of the past, that echoes
also in the poetic name of the district known as the Vineyard,
recalling the days when vines flourished on the slopes of Richmond
Hill, and the almshouses of Sir Richard Wright and Bishop Duppa--both
founded in the seventeenth century, though the latter was only
transferred to its present site in 1852--received their first inmates.
No longer do the shouts of the bargemen, who used to be harnessed to
their crafts in groups of eight, tout for hire in Water Lane, and the
quaint cry 'Man to horse!' by which their customers hailed them, clash
with the shrill horn of the stagecoach that started for London twice a
day, but at the junction of the Lane with King Street still stands part
of the ancient Feather's Inn, once a noted place of resort of the _beau
monde_, and not far from it is the little old-fashioned shop known as
the Maid of Honour, because in it were sold the celebrated cakes
bearing that name. Passed away, leaving no trace, however, are the
Blue Anchor, Black Boy, and Queen Anne's inns, but near the {254}
summit of the famous hill, looking down upon the river, is the fine
residence called Cardigan House, once the property of the earl whose
name it bears, in the grounds of which is the medicinal spring near to
which was erected in 1696 a place of entertainment called Richmond
Wells, that was very much frequented until in 1696 the property was
bought by two straight-laced maiden ladies named Houblin, who quickly
put a stop to the gay gatherings that used to assemble in the theatre
by having it pulled down.
[Sidenote: Richmond Hill]
Beyond Cardigan House are the beautiful public gardens occupying the
site of Lansdowne House and part of the Buccleuch estate that were laid
out after the designs of Sir Frederick, later Lord Leighton, and were
opened in 1866, and a little higher up on the brow of the hill is the
world-famous terrace, the view from which has been eloquently described
again and again in poetry and prose, and has been made the subject of
many a well-known painting. With Petersham Wood and village and the
winding river in the foreground, it embraces the valley of the Thames
as far as Windsor Castle, that can be distinctly seen on a clear day,
and the distant Surrey hills varying in character with the season of
the year, but ever full of fascination and inspiration to those who are
able to appreciate its charm. Again and again the public have been
threatened with the loss of the unique privilege of enjoying this
unrivalled prospect, now one, now another of its exquisite details that
has fallen into the market having been marked for {255} destruction by
the speculative builder, but in almost every case rescue has come
sometimes at the very last moment by the intervention of some generous
individual who has snatched the prey from the destroyer, as when in
1900 Sir Max Waechter bought the beautiful Petersham Ait or Glovers
Islet and presented it to the Richmond Corporation. On the river side
of the famous terrace are two massive-looking eighteenth-century
mansions that, but for the memories associated with them, would be
better away, known as the Wick, occupying the site of the Bull's Head
Tavern and Wick House, the latter, though now considerably altered,
originally designed by Sir William Chambers for Sir Joshua Reynolds,
who lived in it for some years, receiving there many of his celebrated
sitters, and more than once painting the view from its windows. At the
end of the terrace--nearly opposite the entrance to Queen's Road, named
after Queen Caroline, that was a century ago a mere muddy thoroughfare
called Black Horse Lane--is the famous Star and Garter Hotel, that
occupies the site of several earlier buildings, two of which were
destroyed by fire. The first inn of the name--that commemorates the
Earl of Dysart, a knight of the noble Order of Chivalry founded by
Edward III., who owned the ground on which it stood--was built in 1738,
and was but one of several hostelries dotted about near what was then
known as the High Walk on the Green, amongst which was possibly a
predecessor of the one opposite the picturesque modern Wesleyan
College, named after {256} the Lass o' Richmond Hill, about whom there
has been so much amusing controversy, but whose identity has never yet
been satisfactorily determined, some saying that she was Mrs.
Fitzherbert, who at one time lived on the terrace, others that she was
Lady Sarah Lennox, one of several ladies to whom George III. paid court
before he married Queen Charlotte, whilst a few north-country sceptics
declare that she was a rustic beauty of the Yorkshire Richmond.
It was not until the early nineteenth century that the Star and Garter
began to gain the exceptional celebrity it still enjoys, but since
1838, when it was occupied by Louis Philippe, who was visited in it by
the young Queen Victoria, it has been associated with the names of many
illustrious guests, including the Princess Lieven, the widowed Queen
Amelia, the ill-fated Archduke Maximilian, and the Duc d'Aumale.
[Illustration: RICHMOND FROM TWICKENHAM FERRY]
Opposite to the Star and Garter is Ancaster House, soon, alas, to be
replaced by residential flats, named after the Duke of Ancaster, from
whom it was purchased by Sir Lionel Darrell, the favourite of George
III., who gave to him a portion of the park, marking it off himself
with his riding-whip, when he complained that he had not room for the
hothouses he wished to build. In one of the large mansions facing the
famous view lives Sir Frederick Cook, who owns a fine collection of
paintings of the old masters, and a house in the adjacent Downe Terrace
occupying part of the site of Bishop Duppa's almshouses referred to
above, was the {257} home at one time of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and
later of Mrs. Ewing, the daughter of Mrs. Gatty.
[Sidenote: Richmond Town]
The parish church of Richmond, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene,
replaces one of four ancient chapels that belonged to the Abbey of
Merton. Its tower, a massive square structure, that has been again and
again restored, is of much earlier date than the rest of the building,
which has been several times added to. The general effect is not,
however, inharmonious, and there is a simple dignity about the
interior, that contains a number of interesting memorials of noted
inhabitants of the royal borough, including a sixteenth-century brass
to Robert Cotton, who was in the service of Queen Mary and Elizabeth,
and one to Lady Dorothy Wright, who died in 1631. In the chancel is a
monument to Lord Brouncker, who was cofferer to Charles II., and on the
walls of one of the aisles are sculptures by Flaxman to the memory of
the Rev. Mark Delafosse and the Honourable Barbara Lowther. The
inscriptions to Mrs. Yates the great tragic actress, Lady Diana
Beauclerck, the Rev. George Wakefield, Mrs. Hofland, and Edmund Kean,
all of whom rest in the churchyard, are also noteworthy, but they are
all surpassed in interest by the tablet commemorating the famous poet
James Thomson, who lived for many years and died in 1748 in a cottage
known as Rosedale, in the Kew Foot Road, that was later enlarged and
now forms part of the Richmond Hospital, it having been bought by the
Corporation in 1869. As is well known, Thomson greatly loved the
scenery near his home, often {258} referring to its charms in his
poems; he wrote the _Seasons_ in his garden, in a summer-house now
destroyed, where he often received his fellow-poets Leigh Hunt and
Pope, and the actor Samuel Quin, who once rescued him from a
sponging-house into which he had drifted through his carelessness in
money matters. Thomson was buried in the churchyard of the parish
church, but when the latter was enlarged the new wall passed over his
resting-place, which is near the brass tablet put up to his memory by
Lord Buchan, at the west end of the north aisle, that bears the
following inscription: 'In the earth below this tablet are the remains
of James Thomson, author of the beautiful poems entitled the _Seasons_,
the _Castle of Indolence_, etc., who died at Richmond, August 27, and
was buried here August 29, 1748, O.S. The Earl of Buchan, unwilling
that so good a man and so sweet a poet should be without a memorial,
has denoted the place of his interment for the satisfaction of his
admirers in the year of our Lord 1792.'
Beneath this sentence, that naively couples the name of its author with
that of a man far greater than himself, is a quotation from Thomson's
exquisite _Winter_ that may well be given here, so typical is it of its
writer's deeply reverent spirit:--
'Father of Light and Life! Thou God supreme,
O teach me what is good, teach me Thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit, and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious Peace and Virtue prove
Sacred, substantial, never-fading Bliss!'
{259}
[Sidenote: Richmond Park]
Next to its fine position on a very beautiful reach of the Thames, the
chief glory of Richmond--a glory shared, however, by five other
parishes, Petersham, Ham, Kingston, Putney, and Mortlake--is its noble
park, known as the New or Great Park, to distinguish it from the one
that was connected with the palace. It comprises two thousand acres of
charming undulating scenery, grand oak woods and plantations of other
trees alternating with fern-clad dells and dales, in the midst of which
are the picturesque Pen Ponds, so called because they are near the
enclosures for the deer. From certain points, especially from the
terrace between the Richmond Hill gate and the entrance to the grounds
of Pembroke Lodge, just within which is a memorial to Thomson, grand
views are obtained of the Thames valley with the river winding through
it, whilst from the rising ground on the other side of the park the
buildings of London and the twin heights of Highgate and Hampstead can
be distinctly seen.
Originally part of a vast tract of uncultivated land known as Sheen
Chase, of which Ham and Sheen Commons are relics, the Great Park was
first enclosed in 1637 by Charles I., who had a lofty wall, ten miles
in circumference, built round it, and stocked it with the red and
fallow deer the descendants of which add so greatly to its attractions,
thus converting it without any legal justification into a new
hunting-ground for his own pleasure. This high-handed proceeding,
involving as it did the appropriation of much private property, aroused
{260} bitter opposition at the time, not only from the actual owners of
the confiscated estates, but also from Archbishop Laud, Bishop Juxon,
and Lord Cottington, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who espoused the
cause of the common people, their privileges of collecting firewood and
turning their cattle out to graze having been interfered with. The
result of the remonstrances of this powerful trio was that the king,
though he would not yield up a yard of the ground he had so unfairly
seized, ordered the provision, for the use of foot-passengers, of small
gates and step-ladders, the latter of which was situated where the
Coombe entrance, still known as the Ladder Gate, now is. Moreover,
Charles granted to his ranger, in addition to the use of a house called
Harleton Lodge, the site of which has not been identified, the right of
pasturage for four horses, and allowed owners of carriages to drive
through the park on payment of certain fees.
[Illustration: RICHMOND PARK WITH THE WHITE LODGE]
After the execution of the king, Parliament granted the park to the
City of London, but on the Restoration it reverted to the Crown, to
which it has ever since belonged. The rangership became a much coveted
office that was held at different times by distinguished statesmen,
including Sir Robert Walpole, who did much to improve the property, and
built the famous old lodge that was pulled down in 1837. In 1751 the
appointment of ranger was given to the Princess Amelia, who made a very
bad stewardess, for she treated the estate as her own private property,
shutting out the public {261} entirely, and rendering herself so
obnoxious that she was at last compelled to resign. She was succeeded
by the Earl of Bute, and since his time the various restrictions to the
enjoyment by outsiders of the beautiful park have been gradually
removed, so that now all are free to wander at will amongst the woods
and vales, or along the meandering Beverley Brook, to watch the grazing
deer, that are no longer hunted, and to listen in the early spring to
the songs of the nightingales or the harsh cry of the herons as they
sweep down from their lofty nests to fish in the Thames. There are now
six public carriage entrances to the park, and within its precincts are
several old mansions standing in private grounds that are associated
with interesting memories, amongst which the most famous is White
Lodge, built by George II., and added to by the Princess Amelia, that
was long the home of the Duchess of Kent, mother of Queen Victoria, and
later that of the Duke and Duchess of Teck, parents of the present
Princess of Wales, whose eldest son, the heir after his father to the
English throne, was born in it. Close to Sheen Gate is a cottage once
occupied by the famous naturalist Sir Richard Owen, and in Pembroke
Lodge, once known as the Mole-Catchers, that was lent by George II. to
the Countess of Pembroke, after whom it is named, the famous Prime
Minister Earl Russell lived for some years and died. In the grounds of
the Lodge are two mounds, one now called Henry the Eighth's, and marked
in the oldest extant map of the park as the King's Standinge, {262}
because the much-married monarch was long erroneously supposed to have
watched from it for the signal that Anne Boleyn's head had fallen; the
other known as Oliver's Mount, because of the equally unfounded
tradition that Cromwell looked down from it on a battle between the
king's forces and his own, though exactly where the apocryphal battle
took place is not suggested.
[Sidenote: Petersham]
Between Richmond and Kingston is the still charmingly rural-looking
village of Petersham, set down in beautiful scenery, for it is
protected on the north and east by the park named after it and Ham
Common, and is divided from the river by the famous meadows, that will
never be built over, known as Ham Walks, beloved of the poet Gay and of
his patroness the old Duchess of Queensberry, the 'Kitty' whose praises
were sung by him and by Pope and Swift, and who lived in a river-side
mansion that was later occupied by Lady Douglas.
Referred to as Patriceham or Peter's Dwelling in Doomsday Book, the
hamlet of Petersham was for several centuries a dependency of St.
Peter's Abbey at Chertsey, and its quaint little sixteenth-century
church, that has a picturesque turret surmounted by a low spire,
probably occupies the site of a much earlier building, relics of which
may possibly have been incorporated in the chancel that is much older
than the nave. In the little sanctuary, that can only hold three
hundred worshippers, and is soon to be supplemented by a far more
imposing-looking building now (1907) nearing completion, {263} rest the
remains of George Cole and his wife, whose house and grounds were
amongst the properties confiscated by Charles I. for enclosure in the
Great Park, and the church also contains a monument to the great
navigator Captain George Vancouver, who is buried in the churchyard.
There, too, rest Theodora Jane Cowper, the 'Delia' immortalised by her
famous poet cousin, and the Misses Berry, the friends of Horace
Walpole, who in their lifetime enjoyed some little reputation as
authoresses, and resided in the neighbouring Devonshire House, that was
also at one time the home of Lady Diana Beauclerck.
Adjoining Petersham is the little village of Ham, the history of which,
though it is not mentioned in Doomsday Book, can be traced back to
before the Conquest, its manor having been given by King Athelstan to
his chief alderman, Wulgar. Until quite recently a mere hamlet of
scattered cottages, Ham is now growing into a populous suburb, but it
still owes its chief distinction to its association with the celebrated
Ham House, which is, however, really in Petersham parish, and
represents the home of the Saxon thane Wulgar.
A characteristic Jacobean mansion, with fine avenues of trees leading
up to the Petersham and riverside entrances, Ham House was built in
1610 by Sir Thomas Vavasour, and after changing hands several times it
became the property of the noble Dysart family. It was long the home
of Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, in her own right, who was one {264}
of the most beautiful and accomplished women of her time, and played an
important part in the Civil War. Twice married, the second time to the
Duke of Lauderdale, she is said to have won all hearts, even that of
the stern, unbending Cromwell, and when her husband was taken prisoner
after the battle of Worcester she went herself to plead his cause with
the victorious general. Later, when the duke had become the leading
spirit of the Cabal Ministry, Ham House was the scene of many of its
meetings, and allusions to it are frequent in the contemporary press,
notably in the journal of John Evelyn, who under date 27th August 1678
penned an enthusiastic eulogy on it. In the autumn of that year John
Campbell, grandson of the lovely Countess of Dysart, who was to become
known as the great Duke of Argyll, was born in it, and throughout his
chequered career he retained a great affection for it. He died in 1743
in the neighbouring Sudbrook House (now a hydropathic establishment),
that was his favourite residence when he was in England.
Charles II. is said to have taken refuge in Ham House on one occasion
when fleeing for his life from his enemies, narrowly escaping capture,
and his brother James II. was to have been sent there after his
deposition in 1688, but he pleaded so earnestly against it, declaring
it to be a cold and comfortless place in the winter, that he was
allowed to go to Rochester. In the eighteenth century the reputation
of Ham House as one of the most beautiful seats near London was fully
maintained, in spite {265} of the carping criticism to which it was
subjected by Horace Walpole, one of whose nieces had married its owner,
the Earl of Dysart. Queen Charlotte was a frequent visitor there, and
later William IV. was often the guest of the famous Lady Dysart, who
died at a great age in 1840. Since then the time-honoured building has
been little altered, and to the art treasures accumulated by its early
owners have been added many fine paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Hoppner, Vandyck, and other great masters. It remains one of the very
few historic mansions on the Thames that have escaped destruction, and
those who now own it have given many proofs of their respect for its
traditions.
[Sidenote: Kingston]
To pass from Richmond, Petersham, and Ham, that still bear the
unmistakable impress of the past, to modern Kingston and its suburbs
Surbiton and Norbiton, is to enter a different world, so completely has
the ancient city, which is referred to in a charter of King Edred
bearing date 946 as the 'royal town where kings are hallowed,' been
transformed since the days when the Saxon kings were crowned in it,
sitting on the stone still preserved in a railed-in space opposite the
Courthouse. There, as inscribed upon the venerable relic, Athelstan,
Edmund, Edred, Edgar, Edward the Martyr, Ethelred II., and Edmund
received their crowns; there the national councils assembled; and there
took place the tragic scenes between Dunstan and the young king Edwy,
whom the archbishop dared to follow to the chamber of his bride,
[OE]lgifa, an intrusion the newly wedded wife never forgave, and {266}
that had much to do with her bitter hostility to her husband's adviser.
In 1200 the reluctant King John was compelled to give the citizens of
Kingston their first charter, and in the royal town Henry III. was
defied in 1264 by the turbulent barons in the once formidable castle,
the very site of which cannot now be determined. Into Kingston, in
1472, marched Falconbridge with fifty thousand men in pursuit of Edward
IV., whose tenure of the throne was still insecure, to find the bridge,
the only one that then spanned the river above the City of London,
broken down, so that he was obliged to return by the way that he had
come; and at Kingston many years afterwards, the ill-fated Katharine of
Aragon, then a happy-hearted girl of sixteen, halted for a night on her
way to be married to Prince Arthur, elder brother of the second husband
who was to treat her so cruelly. In 1554 the doomed Sir Thomas Wyatt,
in arms against Queen Mary, secured a temporary success by crossing the
river at Kingston on a bridge of boats, and in 1647 the old town was
for some months the headquarters of General Fairfax in command of the
Parliamentarian troops. There a year later the last stand was made
under the Earl of Holland of the Royalists, who were cut to pieces,
their leader falling after a desperate resistance against fearful odds.
Since then Kingston has enjoyed a long spell of peace and security, but
it has lost the distinction that belonged to it in those days of
unrest, retaining but very few survivals of the past. Its parish
church, one of {267} the largest in England, was founded in the early
thirteenth century, but it has been almost completely modernised, part
of its tower and the southern aisle of the chancel being all that are
left of the original structure. It contains, however, some interesting
monuments, notably the altar-tomb of Sir Anthony Benn, who died in
1618, and a seated marble statue of the Countess of Liverpool by
Chantrey, with several fine brasses, including that to Robert Skern and
his wife Joan, daughter of Alice Ferrers, and according to tradition of
Edward III., and that to John Hertcombe and his wife, who died in 1477
and 1478.
[Illustration: THAMES DITTON]
A few old houses in the market-place are all that now remain of the
many mansions that were once the pride of royal Kingston, but its fine
situation on the Thames preserves to it something of the distinction it
enjoyed for so long. It is, moreover, in touch with much beautiful
Surrey scenery and within easy reach by water of many picturesque
riverside villages, such as Thames Ditton, much frequented by boating
men and anglers, and East Molesey on the junction of the Mole with the
Thames opposite Hampton Court, a favourite resort of holiday-makers in
the summer, when the towing-path is lined with gaily decorated
house-boats and pleasure-crafts of great variety are constantly passing
up and down stream.
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